SAIC Volkswagen to kick off production of MEB NEV plant in October

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- SAIC Volkswagen is ready to start production at its Anting-based new energy vehicle (NEV) plant in October, according to a local media outlet. 

Involving a total investment of 17 billion yuan ($2,496,329,300), the Anting-plant is the first NEV plant Volkswagen Group particularly designs for MEB (modular electric drive matrix) production.

(SAIC Volkswagen's MEB plant in Anting; photo source: Volkswagen Group)

According to the Sino-German joint venture, construction of the plant started in October 2018. In May 2019, the plant achieved the “topping out” milestone of primary structure and started installing and debugging facilities. In last November, the first full-process prototype rolled off the production line at the MEB plant.

Volkswagen Group is speeding up its large-scale transition towards electric vehicles, with plans to roll out 75 all-electric vehicle models along with around 60 hybrid models and increase the annual sales of all-electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles to 26 million and 6 million units respectively by 2029—more than half of them coming from China.

Volkswagen previously said that it aims to deliver 1.5 million new energy vehicles to Chinese consumers by 2025. In the future, the plant will be manufacturing MEB platform-based BEV models for various Volkswagen Group brands. In total, it is planned to increase the local production in China up to 15 MEB models from different brands by 2025.

The first product of the Anting plant will be a MEB-based medium-sized SUV, namely, the first China-made model of Volkswagen’s ID. family, which is to be unveiled in the second half of 2020.